Abolishing of the paper part of driving licence.
You should be aware that for the last few years, this and the last Government has had a purge on red tape. One of the items that was considered and has now come to near fruition is the scraping of the paper part of the driving licence.
This will happen in 2015.
The subject was first raised in the business plan of DVLA 2012/13, though we did have the link for this it seems the information has now been removed from the web.
What would this mean for driving instructors? Well in simple terms this will mean you are unable to check a pupils’ entitlement to drive. You will be able to use a premium phone number that charges 51ppm, with a call normally lasting 3 minutes to check. This can only be carried out with the pupil present so as to comply with the Data Protection Act.
Why should the scrapping of the paper part cause a problem, this is because currently should a person receive a driving ban of 56 days or less then the licence is not taken from the driver, however the paper part is marked with the duration of the ban and the offence code. This is easily checked with a visual check of the paper part.
There is currently running a survey conducted by DVLA;
https://www.snapsurveys.com/wh/s.asp?k=139100801136
Dib-Unite have been corresponding with both the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and DLVA since 2012 on this matter.
The survey is not written for the likes of driving instructors; it’s aimed more for commercial companies with many drivers.
Like many surveys there is a strong bias towards what DVLA want. There is not really a choice of an alternative.
The Government have a policy of “Digital by Default”, basically you either use electronic means to communicate with government agencies, to access their services or you can’t interact with them.